Even in Victory, There is Struggle
by Koca002
Summary: How did the 1-A interns deal with the stress after the Shie Hassaikai raid? Story diverges slightly from canon before going in to complete alternative scene from there. Oneshot. Rated T for one use of swearing (I think 1 use).


Hello there.

I have returned with another My Hero Academia story, this one regarding the aftermath of the Shie Hassaikai raid. Hopefully you'll like my take on it. Oneshot.

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia, any of it's film adaptations or the manga.

* * *

After the raid on the Shie Hassaikai hideout, the 1-A interns were transported back to U.A after going through a debriefing and Kirishima receiving some medical treatment. Recovery Girl had told him that he would be fine as long as he didn't do anything too strenuous, unlike a certain green haired hero in training that she knew and that she'd stop by later to check on him and provide some further treatment.

The ride home was noticeably quiet between the four of them, barely even looking at each other as they all still sat in their hero uniforms. They were told to change out of them and return them to their lockers when they got back but they weren't quite ready to get changed just yet, they could barely muster the energy to get back in to the dorms, let alone do anything else.

Midoriya helped Kirishima in through the front door of Heights Alliance, followed by Ochaco and Tsuyu as they all made their way to the common room. Classes were still in so it was just the four of them for now. Having made it to the sofa that sat with it's back to the entryway of the room, Kirishima managed to lay down with a bit of help from Midoriya whilst Uraraka and Tsuyu sat on an opposite sofa and Midoriya sat on the last sofa.

They all sat there in silence for a while, not saying a word, still barely looking at each other as if looking at any one of the others would remind them of the day's events. It didn't really matter though, they were all too wrapped up in their own minds to even ponder about the others situations.

Midoriya was just staring at the ceiling with his back against the sofa, whilst Tsuyu had brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees and staring at a point on the floor somewhere, her goggles sitting on the arm of the sofa. Uraraka had adopted a laying down position on her side, she too just staring in to open space in front of her. Kirishima was also staring at the ceiling, although that was more due to his position on the sofa rather than by any other choice.

All of them were broke out of their revery, yet none of them turned or made to move, when they could hear the front doors of the dorms open and heard only a single set of footsteps approaching them.

Eventually, they all shifted their gaze slightly to see the form of Mr Aizawa sit next to Midoriya in the free space next to him;

"You all did well today, I'm proud" said the Erasure Hero.

"Thanks Mr Aizawa but…" started Ochaco before she decided on what she wanted to say;

"It doesn't feel like a win, ya know" she finished.

"I get it, with all the casualties we took today it really seems like a hollow victory" he replied before continuing himself;

"This was one of the reasons I didn't want you first years to do internships just yet. I didn't think you were mentally prepared for this quite yet and, while I stand firm in my justification, if it weren't for you four, things could have been worse, there could have been more casualties, we might have lost Overhaul and Eri and the whole plan could have been for nothing" he finished.

"I guess that's what we should be taking away from this, that the plan did end up working out after all" said Tsuyu, even though her voice gave away a hint of dejection.

"You should be taking everything from this, the victory, the pain, the hard work, the reality, the losses, the-" replied Aizawa before he was cut off.

"Sir Nighteye...Togata…" uttered Midoriya without continuing.

"Yes, especially the losses. I wasn't too well acquainted with Nighteye but he himself had a good reputation, especially since he was the former sidekick of All Might. Never forget about the losses, they help to keep us grounded, remind us that we may be heroes, but we also have limits. We can go beyond certainly but we must also remember that if we push too far, we could make ourselves just as vulnerable if we didn't push hard enough" said Aizawa, in an almost philosophical kind of way as he stood from the sofa and made his way towards the door. He stopped with his hand on the door knob;

"I know I'm no counselor and you will get school mandated counseling, but if you need to talk about this more, you know where my office is" he offered before turning the knob and pulling the door open to leave.

They fell back in to their uncomfortable silence again, still barely looking at each other, rarely shifting positions. They were starting to become hungry and thirsty but everyone was too tired, physically and emotionally to do anything about it. They heard the front door again, only this time it was multiple footsteps they realised, class must be out and the rest of their friends and classmates must be walking the door it seemed. They heard the idle chatter amongst them all as energetic as ever, clearly nobody had noticed them until;

"Midoriya!? Uraraka!? Asui!?" said Kaminari, clearly surprised to find them all sitting there.

The rest of the class heard what he said and rushed to stand next to him to indeed see their three friends sitting on the sofas;

"I told you to call me Tsuyu" said Tsuyu, in a subdued voice.

"Is...everything alright?" asked Momo with worry and concern.

Nobody said anything for a moment but a particular person was scanning each couch and noticing somebody was missing;

"Where's Kirishima?" asked a very worried and unusually non-energetic Mina.

A hand raised from the sofa closest to them which had it's back to them;

"I'm right here" said Kirishima.

The class moved as a unit to the sofa and looked down to see the prone form of Kirishima laying there, bandages on his head, hands and arm as he looked at them all;

"Hey" was the short response he offered.

Mina gasped audibly and covered her mouth with both of her hands, Jiro similarly doing the same but with only one hand and Momo putting her hand on her chest. The rest of the class were all doing their own various ticks, wide eyes, clicking their tongue, small groans of exasperation, etc. Mina's eyes were starting to water but she didn't want to cry in front of everyone so she took a quick breath so she could ask the question on everyone's lips;

"Are you ok" she asked, voice trembling slightly.

"Not really" said Kirishima, with something akin to shame in his voice.

"What happened?" asked Shoji.

"All we know is what he saw on the news" offered Todoroki.

None of the four teens offered any explanation at first;

"Was it really that bad?" asked Mineta.

"Everyone hold on just a minute" piped up Iida, "I know you're all curious as to what really transpired but they've all had a very hard day. Why don't we give them some space and they can tell us when they're ready" said Iida.

"It's ok Iida" said Midoriya, the first sentence he had formed for some time now.

"Are you sure?" asked Iida.

"Yeah, I'll give you the short version though, I don't think I can relive it all right now" offered Midoriya.

"Me too" said Uraraka.

"Me three" said Tsuyu.

"Make that four" said Kirishima.

The rest of the class looked stunned but then made to move themselves next to their classmates. Momo and Sato offered to make tea and hot chocolate for everyone which was widely accepted by most before Midoriya got in to it;

"Right, where to begin. The simple explanation is that a little girl by the name of Eri was being experimented on by the Shie Hassaikai for her quirk" he started off. Immediately there were gasps and outrage on the faces of many of the students.

"Her quirk is the ability to reverse living things back to an earlier state, like before an accident causes damage to your body...or you had a quirk...or you even existed…" he said, letting the last one linger that bit longer.

Nobody could quite believe the power of this quirk he was describing to them all;

"The leader of the Hassaikai, Kai Chisaki, went by the name Overhaul and he was trying to make a drug that permanently erased the quirk from a person" he went on. The class had already been shocked once and now in just a short space of time, they were shocked again.

"As it turns out, Amajiki had already been shot by an unfinished version of this drug previously but...they've perfected it...and...Togata was shot by one of the bullets carrying the finished version" he said. The implication hung in the air for a moment before someone spoke up;

"Does that mean...he's quirkless now?" asked Sero.

"Yeah, it does" replied Midoriya.

"But how, I thought he could pass through anything" yelled an angry but frightened Jiro.

"He was protecting Eri at the time so he couldn't let it pass through him" Midoriya explained.

They all understood the severity of the situation by this point but Midoriya continued his explanation;

"He kept fighting, even without a quirk but thanks to Overhaul's quirk, he was injured multiple times with spikes from the ground. Sir Nighteye…" he paused for a moment before continuing, "Sir Nighteye was impaled with a spike, the fatal blow" he said.

Everyone in the room took a moment, silence hung in the air as they had all seen the news earlier and knew exactly what he had meant by this.

"Mr Aizawa was taken out earlier by one of the other Hassaikai and we didn't see him for the rest of the fight" he finished before he stopped talking.

"We both were drained of energy from a huge villain whilst we fought off the low life thugs outside...but we managed to beat him after a combined effort between us, Nejire and Ryukyu where we smashed him in to the ground which, incidentally took us to the room where Midoriya and Nighteye were" explained Tsuyu.

"But that's not all, once we saw Deku, we knew something was wrong. Just before we crashed through the ground, we saw Deku up topside but there was no way he could have been in two places at once" explained Uraraka.

The class looked puzzled until Midoriya spoke up again;

"Himiko Toga" he said.

Suddenly everyone was on edge;

"What? The League of Villains, but how?" asked Sato.

"Turns out they were working with them. They even impersonated Rock Lock and stabbed him in the back and tried to take out me and Mr Aizawa" said Midoriya.

After a brief pause and nobody continuing the story, an unlikely voice spoke up;

"I thought you said this was the short version Deku" said Bakugou who was only slightly frustrated as this clearly wasn't the full story.

"It's hard to know when to stop and when to keep going Bakugou" said Kirishima as he had sat upright.

"I learned that today. I went up against an enemy who broke my unbreakable form in one punch" explained

"What!? No Way!" exclaimed Bakugou, he couldn't believe it, nobody could.

"Yeah, me and Fat Gum took on these two guys who worked well together, one could create a shield to protect them, the other guy was just a really buff dude. I thought I could take the punch for Fat Gum to counter...instead I got blown all the way across the room and in to a wall, the skin on my forearms crumbling away" explained Kirishima as he looked at his bandaged arms, remembering the feeling.

Mina leaned over the back of the sofa and wrapped her arms around Kirishima's neck and pulled him in to a hug as best she could from her position. Uraraka continued the story;

"Once we fell in to the cavern below, Deku tried to take on Overhaul but something else happened whilst we were there. Eri returned and did...something to Overhaul...made him weaker" she said as she was trying to understand herself how to explain it.

"Overhaul's quirk is the ability to manipulate matter, basically anything he touches he can dismantle and rebuild anyway he wants...including destroying a person and fusing them with himself" explained Midoriya.

"This is just too much to take in" said Kaminari as a headache was starting to form.

"He'd took one of the other villains and fused with him, making him an even bigger, deadlier villain. Eri ran back in during the battle and used her quirk on Overhaul before I stopped her from falling. I kept her safe as I kept dodging attacks from Overhaul, until I kicked off and then...somehow I was outside, way up in the air" Midoriya had went on to say.

"We were left in the cavern with Overhaul...but Nighteye told us that he wouldn't come near us, that he was after the girl, using his foresight he told us that Overhaul would chase down Midoriya, get Eri back and then…" Tsuyu had gone on but stopped.

"What did he say?" asked Momo tentatively.

"...that he'd kill Deku" said Uraraka, a single tear left one of her eyes and ran down her cheek as she looked straight across at the other sofa where Midoriya was sitting, he too looking straight back at the gravity girl.

Nobody said anything to that, they couldn't comprehend what had happened, though they knew there was more to the story, after all, Midoriya was sitting there.

"I went to get Togata at Nighteye's request and Ochaco and Ryukyu helped Nighteye to the surface" said Tsuyu.

After a brief pause, someone asked them to continue;

"So what happened then Midoriya?" asked Mineta.

"Once I landed on the surface, I didn't have time to relax. Eri's never been able to handle her quirk properly so once she used it on Overhaul, she couldn't stop...it started affecting me. See all these holes, these are where the spikes had gotten me...not a scratch...all thanks to Eri's quirk" he explained as he had shown them all the spike holes and the lack of marks on him.

"Right after, Overhaul came at us again...so...I strapped Eri on to my back knowing what her quirk could do" he finished.

"I got up to the surface with Nighteye and we watched...Deku fighting...but not like this, I've never seen anything like it...it was...it was...Deku, what exactly was it?" she asked, looking at her friend for help to explain it.

The whole class was curious, if Uraraka had been witness and couldn't describe then what exactly did Midoriya do?

"...I was using 100% of my power" he said almost defeatedly.

The whole room went wide eyed.

"But...how?" asked Todoroki, who knew all too well that Midoriya could only push his body so far.

"Eri's quirk...it was effectively rewinding my body back so fast that no matter how much pain and damage my body was in, I couldn't react to it. I fought with Overhaul, had him beat at every corner...until Eri's quirk threatened to tear me apart and as it turned out, even at 100% I still didn't take Overhaul down. It was only when he made a grab for me and Eri did her quirk completely reverse his fused form" explained Midoriya.

"Whilst Overhaul was out for the count, I apprehended him...but Deku was...still in danger, to that quirk…" said Uraraka again, this time tears leaving both her eyes.

"I would have been dead...if not for Tsuyu" said Midoriya. This garnered the attention of the room who all looked at the rainy day hero;

"I had returned to the surface with Mirio and Amajiki not long before. Mr Aizawa was also there but he'd been attacked with a quirk that slowed down all his movement to super slow motion speeds. He managed somehow to get a signal to me and I maneuvered him to be able to stare at Midoriya, allowing him to use his quirk" explained Tsuyu who also now had a tear rolling down her cheek.

Midoriya slowly stood and made his way towards the other sofa;

"So there you have it...the short version" said Midoriya as he sat himself between Uraraka and Tsuyu, allowing each girl to lean in to him for a shoulder to cry on.

Kirishima, while thankful for Mina's comfort, had kindly garnered her attention to let go of her hug as he gingerly made his way to the other three and sat down next to Tsuyu and joined in the group moment.

The rest of the room were also starting to get tears in their eyes, some of them trying (and failing) to contain them, others looked away, whilst one or two just felt uncomfortable at the whole situation.

"It must have been a trying experience. We'll leave you alone for now but if you ever need to talk to someone...I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say, we'll be here for you" said Iida.

"Speak for yourself" said Bakugou in a low voice.

"Thanks" said Midoriya, struggling to contain his own tears.

"Thanks" said Uraraka, Tsuyu and Kirishima, each in their own way.

Iida nodded his understanding and ushered the rest of the class out towards their rooms.

The foursome sat there for a while, just embracing each other, Midoriya forgetting about the closeness of two very attractive looking girls throughout the whole ordeal.

* * *

That night, the four of them decided to sleep in the common room to keep each other company, knowing that it was going to be difficult to sleep that night;

"Excuse me but...is there room for one more?" came the voice of Momo from the doorway. Uraraka sat up and looked over to her before her first genuine smile all day appeared;

"Sure, c'mon over" was the reply.

Moments later, Kaminari, Sero and Mineta appeared;

"Hey uh...can we crash here too?" asked Sero.

"Sure" said Kirishima with a toothy grin.

This went on for about ten minutes until everyone in the class was laying in a makeshift bed somewhere on the floor, until;

"Hey Kacchan, you wanna come join us?" asked Midoriya.

"Why the hell would I want to sleep on the floor when I have a perfectly good bed ya damn nerd" scalded Bakugou before getting a drink from the kitchen and storming back off to his room.

About twenty minutes later after almost everyone was asleep did Bakugou return and find a spot near Kirishima. The red haired teen merely looked at him;

"Real manly of you to return bro" whispered Kirishima.

"Shut up and go sleep shitty hair" Bakugou whispered a shout before turning over to go to sleep.

* * *

I'v recently seen the episode in the anime where they return from their internship and I wasn't really happy with just avoiding the emotional and psychological aftermath after they returned to the dorms, so I've written a version of how I could see them discussing it out loud.

There's been no prior planning to this and has literally been written line for line off the top of my head.


End file.
